I heard of Martin Luther King Jr. when I was 15 years old. I heard of Rosa Parks. And I met Dr. King in 1958 at the age of 18. I met Rosa Parks ... But to pick up a fun comic book - some people used to call them "funny books" - to pick this little book up, it sold for 10 cents, 12 pages or 14 pages? 14 pages I digested. And it inspired me. And I said to myself, "If the people of Montgomery can do this, maybe I can do something. Maybe I can make a contribution."

We all remember that [Donald] Trump was one of the leaders of the so-called birther movement trying to delegitimize the presidency of our first African-American president Barack Obama, which is an outrage.

Young people can understand, and must understand, that we had success, we had failures, but we never gave up. We never gave in. We never became bitter. We didn't hate. We continued to press on. And that's what we're saying: There are some ups, there are some downs, and when you're not down, you must have the capacity and the ability to get up and keep going.

When people tell me nothing has changed, I say come walk in my shoes and I will show you change.

I don't have any extraordinary gifts. I'm just an average Joe who grew up very poor in rural Alabama.

The book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, I read it when I was about 17-and-a-half or 18. It changed my life.

I truly believe that one day we will get there, we will arrive. And if we do it right in America, maybe, just maybe, we can serve as a model for the rest of the world.